Ohio Election Audit Find Massive Descrepancies

Ohio Vote Audit for 2004 election finds massive discrepancies:

CLEVELAND — Computer vote-memory card totals failed to match electronic voting machine ballot tallies in more than one quarter of the samples checked from the November election in the state’s most populous county, an independent audit showed Thursday.
In the 37 sample precincts where results didn’t match, there may have been corrupted memory cards, missing or torn reports, faulty printers or other problems, according to the independent audit commissioned by the Cuyahoga County elections board.

These are exactly the kinds of memory cards which were highlighted by the HBO Documentary, Hacking Democracy earlier this year. But where the differences in totals enough to change the outcome of the 2004 elections?

Because the checks involved unofficial counts, the audit committee wasn’t in a position to say whether vote totals might have been affected, member Ron Olsen said.

So although there may have been massive problems, exactly who those problems may or may not have benefited remains unclear - so far. Clearly these results should warrant further investigation and explaination particularly in the wake of the scandal upon scandal which has plagued Cuyahoga County.

Ohio's Bob "Ballots for Bush" Bennett, an essential player in putting George W. Bush back in the White House in 2004, is no long chair of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. His milestone resignation leaves a legacy of scandal, recrimination, massive voter purges, felony convictions and a pivotal role in a stolen presidential election.

Bennett has quit in a signature cloud of graceless accusations and cheap shots at Jennifer Brunner, Ohio's newly elected Secretary of State, who asked him to resign along with the rest of the Cleveland election authority. His forced departure marks the biggest landmark yet in the unraveling theft of the presidential elections in Ohio 2004.

Bennett remains chair of the Ohio Republican Party. In 2004 he was apparently asked by White House consigliere Karl Rove to stay on at the Cuyahoga BOE to help guarantee Bush's second term. Cleveland is Ohio's biggest and most Democratic urban center. A massive sweep there by John Kerry was widely expected to have given him the White House. It was Bennett's job to mute that margin, and apparently that's exactly what he did.

Leading up to the 2004 vote, Bennett oversaw the quiet purge of some 168,000 registered voters from the Cuyahoga rolls, including 24.93% of the entire city of Cleveland, which voted 83% for Kerry. In one inner city majority African American ward, 51% of the voters were purged. Centered on precincts that voted more than 80% for John Kerry, this purge may well have meant a net loss to the Democrats of tens of thousands of votes in an election that was officially decided statewide by less than 119,000.

Vyan

Steven Heller: Diebold can not be Trusted

As reported by BradBlog, Diebold Whistleblower Steven Heller has reached a plea deal with LA District Attorney Steve Cooley - and has decided to speak out.

In my view, Diebold has shown they cannot be trusted to run elections in America. We must not allow a private corporation to run our elections for us in secret, using secret machines and secret software. The only thing secret about our elections should be the secret ballot.

I urge all Americans to insist Congress enact Federal legislation requiring that all voting machines must have a voter verifiable paper ballot, be run on open source software code, be subject to inspection by independent computer experts, and that each election have a random sample ballot recount. Only then will we have a chance of restoring true integrity to American elections.

Last February I wrote a highly recommended and contentious Diary on the Heller case, based on a Huffingtonpost article which discussed actions to be taken in his defense.

. Don't prosecute Stephen Heller. He's a whistleblower, not a criminal, and he should not be prosecuted.

. Diebold is the criminal here. Stephen Heller is alleged to have exposed Diebold's criminal activity, and that makes him a whistleblower. He should not be prosecuted.

. Diebold's election malfeasance strikes at the very heart of our democratic republic. Without clean elections, we don't have democracy anymore. Those who expose such crimes are whistleblowers and should not be prosecuted.

. America has a long history of whistleblowers exposing criminal activity, and prosecuting them is wrong; it puts a chilling effect on others who might see criminal activity and want to expose it.

I have no idea weather the Huffingtonpost or Dkos had any impact on the eventual decision make by the LADA, but I have to consider outcome to be a victory for Whistleblowers and Democracy.

Heller pled guilty yesterday in an agreement with Los Angeles prosecutors, after his arrest earlier this year on felony charges related to his release of attorney-client privileged documents he obtained while working as a temporary word-processor at Diebold's law firm, Jones Day.

The agreement, which required him to sign an apology, pay $10,000 in restitution, and not discuss the documents he released, may also allow Heller's felony conviction to be reduced to a misdemeanor charge after one year of "good behavior."

As well, in exchange for Heller's signed apology and commitment not to discuss the documents themselves (which are already publicly available since he released them originally to both the media and Election Integrity activists), Jones Day signed an agreement that they would not sue him in civil court in the matter.

Still, it's quite interesting that Heller was ever in this position since California has a Whistleblower Law...

... which prevents employers from exacting retribution against an employee who "has reasonable cause to believe that the information [being released] discloses a violation of state or federal
statute."

That law was used to protect Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org who received the Jones-Day documents from Heller and provided them to then Secretary of State Kevin Shelley and the CA Attorney General. These events led to the Decertification of Diebold in California as was documented in the recent HBO Film "Hacking Democracy".

Apparently because of his opposition to the Voting company Shelley soon found himself defrocked and replaced by a Republican who quickly recertified Diebold.

Generally speaking Whistleblowers have been taking it in the shorts lately.

Government whistle-blowers are facing increased retaliation for speaking out. "In the four years before the terrorist attacks, whistle-blowers filed an average of 690 reprisal complaints...annually. Since the attacks, an average of 835 complaints have been filed each year, a 21% increase.”

Even with this crackdown - the words seems to be getting out - Lou Dobbs dared to take a few moments away from bashing immigrants to notice.

“Electronic voting machines are placing our democracy at risk.” This dire warning on the eve of the election came not from MoveOn.org or Air America, but CNN anchor and lifelong Republican Lou Dobbs.

Dobbs was hardly alone in sounding the alarm, as in Maryland both gubernatorial candidates urged voters to use absentee ballots rather than rely on the state’s Diebold voting machines, and nationwide, 66 percent of registered voters believed it to be likely that hackers would tamper with the vote count. While it is encouraging that last week’s election does not appear to have been marred by major allegations of electoral theft, the alarm is still ringing and must be addressed prior to 2008.
In the past six years, the use of electronic voting machines has tripled and is now used by nearly 40 percent of registered voters.

Democrats have been generally mum, considering how well they did two weeks ago, but there is still very strong evidence that the FL-13 race was hacked and stolen.

The group of nearly 18,000 voters that registered no choice in Sarasota's disputed congressional election solidly backed Democratic candidates in all five of Florida's statewide races, an Orlando Sentinel analysis of ballot data shows.

Among these voters, even the weakest Democrat -- agriculture-commissioner candidate Eric Copeland -- outpaced a much-better-known Republican incumbent by 551 votes.

The trend, which continues up the ticket to the race for governor and U.S. Senate, suggests that if votes were truly cast and lost -- as Democrat Christine Jennings maintains -- they were votes that likely cost her the congressional election.

Republican Vern Buchanan's 369-vote victory was certified by state officials Monday. His camp says that, although people may have skipped the race -- intentionally or not -- there is no evidence that votes went missing.

But the results of the Sentinel analysis, two experts said, warrant additional investigation.

"Wow," University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato said. "That's very suggestive -- I'd even say strongly suggestive -- that if there had been votes recorded, she [Jennings] would have won that House seat."

The fact that Democrats did so well this year is no excuse to sweep these issues under the rug. Fortunately, the issue hasn't been completely ignored by some newly empowered Dems. Pat Leahy has called for Laura Ingraham's Phone Jamming Suggestions to be investigated, and Harry Reid is beginning to ,talk tough.

"The Senate Democratic leadership team plans a long, laborious slog for the Senate next year even as party leaders continue to formalize their legislative agenda for the 110th Congress — an agenda that already includes a couple of surprises.

"At a breakfast with reporters Tuesday, incoming Majority Leader Harry Reid [D-NV] warned that the “do-nothing” Congress, as his party has labeled recent Republican rule in the chamber, will soon be over....

"Principally, Reid said that would mean passing a bill to create criminal penalties for election fraud, including offenses such as voter misinformation campaigns carried out by robo-calls and misleading flyers.

"Noting that such tactics were used in both the Missouri and Maryland Senate races, Schumer said, “I think the person or people who authorized that should go to jail for 10 years.” Currently, civil fines usually are the most serious penalty assessed for such ploys. Schumer added that a separate unit should be created within the Justice Department to deal with cases of election fraud."

Even if these reforms are enacted we still should consider the job incomplete, we've all seen how well a partisan agenda can completely neuter the DOJ's existing Civil Rights Division which under the Voting Rights Act already has jurisdiction on these matters.

It's a step in the right direction, but we still need to ask - No, Demand - more and better safeguards for our vote. Our Democracy depends on it.

Vyan

Election Night After Action Report

My Interview with Video The Vote on Election Eve.

On this YouTube Video as a Pollworker I describe the two new voting machines which were used during the 2006 Midterm Elections in Los Angeles Country, which had been sitting in my living room for over a week prior to November 7th.

On tape I discuss the various security concerns and safeguards which have been put in place to protect the vote and these machines from possible tampering.

On election night our Precinct ran smoothly. We had approximately 280 Voters come through, 20 of those had to use provisional ballots because they were not listed on our voter roster. (Most had come to the wrong polling location - as the County gradually shifts the precincts around in preparation for full electronic voting at "Neighborhood Voting Centers" (NVCs).

Overall turnout (number of signatures in roster vs total registerd voters in the precinct) was about 23%. 18 ballots were cast with Overvotes (Two or more choices selected for the same race) and were rejected by our Precinct Ballot Reader. (Which is a failure rate of about 7%) In all but two of those cases the voter cast a new ballot and it was accepted, the others simply let the ballot go through as it was with the mistakes intact. In previous years a ballot with an overvote would have been entirely rejected and not counted, but this year for the first time only the race which includes the overvote will be ignored.

Two voters entered blank ballots and had those ballots rejected. They successfully revoted.

This means that voter "turnout" should have increased by between 5-10% across the entire county due to the use of these machines, simply because ballots that would have been rejected would now be counted and included in the final tally.

On the tape I mention that voters essentially had "Three Strikes and your out" - meaning they had three chances to successfully vote. This became a bit of a discussion with the people at Election Protection, but the bottom line was that I was correct - technically. California State Law only allows a voter to have two correction ballots (three total). We didn't have anyone go to the third ballot - but we did have one person who had significant errors twice in a row. He walked out in disgust and we entered his ballot with the "Override" so that his remaining errors would be ignored. This could also have been done if he'd tried to use a third ballot and still had received errors.

My own mother, who was the Precinct Inspector, made an overvote mistake on her ballot which the machine caught. In as many cases as we could we would manually verify the overvote reported by the machine and show this to the voter so that they could understand what the mistake had been and how to correct it. Usually people with weaker eyesight had simply punched one hole above or below where they intended and created an overvote.

Overall for us, things went smoothly - we ran into no significant problems. As it turned out though - we were lucky.

Some of the other poll workers interviewed by Video the Vote from West Hollywood (a Very Heavily Democratic District I think - since the Polls were at the Gay and Lesbian Center!) were going through a veritable nightmare with these machines at their NVC which included three precincts in one location. I actually talked to this pollworker myself on election day and the situations was that one of the inspectors and all their materials were sent to another location, so every voter who arrived for that precinct had to be put on provisional ballots (which ended up being around 200) because they had no Roster to verify if those people were legal voters or not.

They didn't have any ballots for that precinct - so they had to use the sample ballots that were only supposed to used for demostration purposes. (But are still a valid backup).

They had two voting machines - but one of them failed totally, while the second was having a wiring problem and would short out and restart. As a result they were only using one machine for three precincts and some of the ballots were generating a message "Ballot Error" when entered.

As these Precinct Ballot Reader machines are started and initialized, a special card has to be put into the machine. I examined this card and found that it was very much like an old school IBM Punch Card (I mean real... old school - like from the 70's. Admittedly my computer experience actually does go back that far - I was pratically a blastocyst with an Atari). The punch holes on the ballots matched this card exactly, and the ballots themselves included a unique Serial Number which matched the Serial Number for the Precinct.

From a programming and systems design background it seems to me that each machine was probably pre-programmed with the ballot for every portion of L.A.County, including any local initiatives which would only be valid in certain cities. On election day the reader would read the setup card, and use it to identify which precinct it was currently located in, then call up the approprate ballot template to check for overvotes. From what I could tell this was the only way things could have been functioning, or else they would have had to preload only one precinct per machine and then make sure they gave the right machine to the correct inspector. (Em, I don't think so...)

This of course made me suspect that the West Hollywood "Ballot Error" was the result of trying to place two precincts ballots through the same reader. I haven't yet been able to confirm this yet, but I strongly suspect this was the case.

I don't know if the fact that our district is almost equally split between Democrats and Republicans is part of why things went fine without a glitch while a heavily Democratic District went through veritable hell. Was it simply human error or more? Hard to say at this point. But as more and more Election After Action Reports come through, we might eventually be able to see a pattern emerge or not.

One thing we can't afford to do - is not pay attention.

Vyan

Security Note: On the Video I discuss the security tabs which is used to cover an RS-232 ethernet port on the Ballot Reader. When I got a better look I discovered that those tabs were reenforced and individually numbered. Also I stated that the machine had no memory card - but during the election I discovered a second security tab which was placed over a locked door on the lower left side of the machine, below the touchscreen (I tried to get a picture of it above). Exactly what is behind that door, I don't know - but it clearly means that there might have been more externally adjustable elements than I had previously seen.

Protecting the Vote - Once Precinct at a Time

Although the daunting prospect of electronic voting as well as organized voter suppression looms on the eve of the 2006 election, there are still a great many things that we individuals can do to protect the vote.

If you haven't already - Take Tomorrow Off From Work and plan to spend all day at the Polls.

As a citizen it is your right to be able to watch your Democracy and progress. the only way that the vote can be tampered with or stolen is when no one is looking.

Go to the Polls and keep Watch on our Democracy, but most importantly - you must document what you see!

Depending on the rules in your state, some of the details may vary slightly - but in general there is no reason why you can not go to your local voting place and simply watch.

Here are some simple rules of thumb and suggestions.

Bring a Lunch.

Bring a Camera (preferably video).

Bring a Phone.

Bring a Notepad.

Bring a portable radio with earphones so you can hear the local and nation news without disturbing others.

Do NOT discuss preferences on the ballots measure or specific races while within 40-100 ft (depending on the state) of the polling place. That is Electioneering and is prohibited by law. Make note and document anyone else you see violating this law.

Poll workers should be courteous and helpful. They should not object to your watching as long as you don't interfere with their work or the voters.

Make a note of excessive delays or lines, note the precinct and average wait times.

As the day progresses Read and Review the Street Index, which should be updated each hour by poll workers to indicate which persons in the precinct have already voted and posted near the entrance. This can used for last-minute GOTV as the index should include the name, address, phone number and party affiliation of each registered voter. If you have a phone (tip #2 above) you can call any voter and remind them of the election and ask them if they plan to vote today, but you can not suggest to them how they should vote while in the polling place. Some people might be put-off by a cold-calling of this type (even if they aren't already getting robo-bombed) - so use your best judgement and always be courteous.

Pay attention to voter ID challenges. (I'm a poll-worker in California so I can speak to their laws primarily, and in California you do not need ID to vote as long as your are listed in the Roster as an "Active" Voter - one who has voted at least once during the past two Presidential election cycles. If you have not, you should be listed as an "Inactive" voter and you still don't need ID, only to verify your name and address - then recite a voter oath. New Voters who've recently registered must show ID - or proof of address - if they can't they can still vote provisionally.

Pay attention to how and when voters are shunted toward provisional ballots. Voters Should Not Be Harrassed The rules may vary from state to state, but generally provisional ballots should only be issued for people who are a) New without ID or b) Voting outside their normal precinct. Provisional voters should be given a receipt which tells them that they can call a number or check a website 30 days after the election to verify that their vote was or wasn't counted.

Each voter should sign the roster individually. If someone comes to the poll and finds that someone else has already signed their slot on the roster - that's not a good sign. Document it.


Document any reports of "Vote Flipping" with Electronic Vote Machines.

Document, if you can, the details of votes which have been rejected by Ballot Readers. (Units made by ES&S have been distributed to all 5000 precincts in LA.) For this election the readers will not be counting the votes, only checking them for errors - votes missing or overvotes - and generating a report. The voter should have the option to override the error report if they don't care about those particular races , or redo their ballot to fix any problems. The Ballot Readers I've seen Do not have Memory Cards, but they do have an Ethernet Cable Port which should be covered by a piece of security tape. If you can, ensure sure that this tape has not been tampered with in order to hide unauthorized access to the machine's internals.

New Audio Booths are now available which function like an automatic phone system and allows people who may be visually impaired, unable to read or not speak english to vote. These Audio Booths are controlled by through the Ballot Reader device and will print their own ballots once the voter has completed making their selections. Unfortunately these devices have a limit of only 25 ballots - one of which is automatically printed when the device is booted - so only 24 persons per precinct will be able to use this device.

If you see questionable activity and don't have a camera of your own you can contact 1-866-OUR-VOTE which is national hotline associated with Video the Vote.org who may be able to send a voluanteer camera crew out depending on your location.

If you do have a Camera you can upload your video and observations to forums like this one, Youtube or Oped News.com

There's no real excuse for sitting on your hands and not taking part in your democracy. Voting itself is least you can do.

Other suggestions welcome...

Vyan

HBO: Hacking Democracy's Epitaph

Last night I watched the HBO Documentary "Hacking Democracy" and found it fascinating, if somewhat well worn territory (for myself and Dkossers).

The film follows Bev Harris of Black Box Voting as she originally began to take up the cause of Verified Voting in 2001 and continues through the decertification of Diebold by California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley and verification by Leon Country Election Supervisor Ion Sancho that the results of electronic tabulators can be untracably altered via their memory cards.

But there's more to this story. Much more...

A Review of Hacking Democracy from the New York Times.

TV Review | 'Hacking Democracy'
In the Land of `Every Vote Counts,' Uncertainty on Whether It's Counted Correctly
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN

(snip)
Hacking Democracy" follows Ms. Harris and her band of unmerry women (and male hackers and hangers-on) as they trudge to polling places, corporate headquarters and court hearings looking for answers. An "irregularity" -- that's computerese for blank existential terror -- that shows up in Volusia County, Fla., in November 2000 energizes their cause: in that county, Mr. Gore seems to have received "-16,022" votes. A deficit. Negative votes. It doesn't take a scientist from Stanford to explain that is just, um, bad.

A second memory card, which vanished into thin air (naturally), may have been loaded into the computer that counted the votes. That's fraud of the highest order. Susan Bernecker, a Republican candidate for City Council in Jefferson Parish, La., in the mid-1990s, went to test the voting machines years ago. Twice, in a demo, she pressed her own name to see how it would register; twice the name of her opponent was registered in the memory of the machine. They test 15 more machines and find the same results.

Rigged voting in Louisiana? Say it ain't so. But it's not shocked-shocked you feel watching this; it's genuine shock. As the drama proceeds, adducing more evidence for the unreliability of the voting machines than can possibly be explored here, you might also feel flattened. Computers count around 80 percent of votes in America. The marketing director for Diebold, Mark Radke, who defends both the company and its chief executive (a major Republican fund-raiser who once promised in a letter to "deliver the electoral votes of Ohio" to President Bush), talks in maddening doublespeak and wears the arched-eyebrow expression of a silent-movie fiend. His Nixon-era nondenial denials turn the stomach.

Bev Harris herself has been rather controversial in these waters -- but there's little denying the public service that she has performed by being involved in this film.

In the film we see Bev and her friends dumpster diving in Georgia and Florida for election materials and managing to discover signed copies of tabulator printouts which by law are supposed to be kept for years following an election.

Harris shows Howard Dean - how to hack an election using MS Access. (Which is not exactly a "high-end" software app)

The HBO film ends with the work of Harri Husti as he manages to duplicate the Volusi County negative vote phenomenon simply by updating the memory card used on a tabulator machine in a demonstration for Ion Sancho of Leon County Fl. - it is apparently this demonstration which eventually led to Sancho to kick Diebold out of the county. Let me point out that this machine is used to count PAPER Ballots and that the results of Hursti's test show that such modifications could be done without detection and could affect all votes throughout not just a single precinct, but an entire county or congressional district depending on how many ballots are sent through the infected machine.

Voting Absentee is No Protection as all ballots are eventually put through the same tabulator machines. If the machine has been tampered with, every vote will be affected.

Unfortunately the real ending for the film isn't nearly as positive as what was shown by HBO.

After kicking out Diebold Sancho ran in to problems with other voting equipment companies who complained "they couldn't trust him".

Now all state-approved companies refuse to sell him the machines he's ordered until he promises to run no further checks on them. And he's had to return the $1/2 million dollar grant he wanted to use to order voting machines for the disabled.

But wait, it gets worse...

After decertifying Diebold for California, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley resigned amid scandal and was replaced by Republican Bruce McPherson (as appointed by Governer Schwarzenegger) who quickly proceeded to recertify Diebold.

Diebold Machines are in use Now, thruout California for Early/Absentee voting.

As was recently shown by Computer Scientists from Princeton, these machines remain highly vulnerable to tampering - all you need is some code and a mini-bar key to access the machine. Even the dim-bulbs on Faux News were shocked when they were shown how to hack an election in 90 seconds.

Husti has also found security holes and "back-doors" in other Diebold machines, holes which the state of Maryland had been aware of for nearly two years.

All it would take is One person to change the outcome of an election according to the Washington Post.

A malicious individual with access to a voting machine could rig the software without being detected. Worse yet, if the attacker rigged the machine used to compute the totals for some precinct, he or she could alter the results of that precinct. The only fix the RABA authors suggested was to warn people that manipulating an election is against the law.

...

Diebold spokesman David Bear admitted to the New York Times that the back door was inserted intentionally so that election officials would be able to update their systems easily. Bear justified Diebold's actions by saying, "For there to be a problem here, you're basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious election officials who would sneak in and introduce a piece of software... I don't believe these evil elections people exist."

We shouldn't have to trust the veracity of a Diebold spokesmans belief on this issue. But unfortunately, their assurances are pretty much all we have - that and the likelyhood that all of our election workers are honest and honorable.

On a personal note I'm not entirely cynical on this issue, as I happen to be an election worker myself, and have been for the last several years including the 2004 Presidential contest. This month I went through training on the latest ballot reader devices which will be used at all 5026 precincts in Los Angeles County. My mother is an Election Inspector - which means that last Sunday she picked up all of the polling place materials and has been storing them in her living room - including the ballot reader. Now I happen to have a computer software and security background, including 12 years working for a defense contrator and several more as a consultant with the State of california.

IMO There are all kinds of mischief possibilities here. (I noticed during our training that access to the Admin Functions of the reader were not password protected. This may be changed on election day - I would hope!). But to date - simply because of my own personal honor - I haven't touched anything and I won't - But I could if I wanted to.

So could the other inspectors and additional 10,000+ polls workers in this one county. Can we truly expect that everyone will show the same restraint? I would hope so, but unfortunately I think not.

On the positive side, the 5000+ ballot readers which are currently sitting in various living rooms and garages across L.A. County are not being used to count the votes, only to verify that the voter hasn't made any mistakes which might invalidate their vote. They do have the capability to count votes, but that feature has been turned off - for now.

The situation is dire, but it is NOT hopeless. This is no time to hang our heads in frustration and despair. It's time to ACT.

From my years of experience at the polls my suggestion to anyone who feels this is a serious issue is - if you haven't already - take Tuesday off and spend it at your local polling place to WATCH. Citizens have a right to be view their Democracy in progress. Bring a Camera, a note pad and a cell phone.

• Document anyone trying to influence or sway voters (Electioneering within 100 feet of Poll), it's a crime.


• Document any challenges to a voters status, unreasonable requests for ID or their being required to vote provisionally without just cause.


• Federal Law Requires that Poll Workers Update the Street Index every hour to indicate who has already voted. This index (in California) includes that Name, Address, Phone Number and PARTY AFFILIATION of each registered voter. USE YOUR PHONE and get our people to the Polls.

There isn't much we can do about malicious code which may or may not be in play this upcoming Tuesday (Robert F Kennedy Jr has a pending lawsuit against Diebold which should eventually help in the future) but we can do something about the human element right now!.

By acting individually we can avoid the types of "phone bank jamming" tricks that Republicans have used in the past. They can't stop all of us. Don't wait for the campaigns and the politicians to protect your Democracy for you - Take it personally. Get involved and make sure everyones vote counts. We can't afford not too.

Vyan

Impending E-Voting Debacle finally noticed by MSM

The Washington Post today posted a major article on November's looming E-Voting Calamity (Courtesy of ThereIsNoSpoon)

An overhaul in how states and localities record votes and administer elections since the Florida recount battle six years ago has created conditions that could trigger a repeat -- this time on a national scale -- of last week's Election Day debacle in the Maryland suburbs, election experts said.

In the Nov. 7 election, more than 80 percent of voters will use electronic voting machines, and a third of all precincts this year are using the technology for the first time. The changes are part of a national wave, prompted by the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 and numerous revisions of state laws, that led to the replacement of outdated voting machines with computer-based electronic machines, along with centralized databases of registered voters and other steps to refine the administration of elections.

This story is finally starting to get some traction, now that the problems in Maryland's primary have been so well documented. The ripples of the Princeton Diebold video seem to be spreading and have already reached the shores of Faux News.

But in Maryland last Tuesday, a combination of human blunders and technological glitches caused long lines and delays in vote-counting. The problems, which followed ones earlier this year in Ohio, Illinois and several other states, have contributed to doubts among some experts about whether the new systems are reliable and whether election officials are adequately prepared to use them.

Ok, Now they're starting to have doubts? We've already had the Conyers Report(pdf) as well as RFK's stunning article in Rolling Stone. Which was followed up Fitrakis and Herbert. Rampant problems in the Billbray/Busby contest in San Diego. As well as various Whistleblowers, William Singer, Ion Sancho, and Steven Heller.

The fact that Maryland had these problems, shows the strength of the e-voting lobby, since Maryland House had voted to kick Diebold out and switched back to paper-ballots in March of this year.

Diebold, the electronic voting machine maker, suffered another sharp setback recently, when Maryland's House of Delegates voted 137-to-0 to drop its machines and switch to paper ballots. The vote came in the same week that Texas held elections marred by electronic voting troubles. Maryland's State Senate should join the House in voting to discontinue the use of the Diebold machines, and other states should follow Maryland's lead.

Maryland was one of the first states to embrace Diebold. But Maryland voters and elected officials have grown increasingly disenchanted as evidence has mounted that the machines cannot be trusted. In 2004, security experts from RABA Technologies told the state legislature that they had been able to hack into the machines in a way that would make it possible to steal an election. Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Democrat, informed the State Board of Elections in 2004 that voters had complained to her that machines had mysteriously omitted the Senate race.

Unfortuately this intiative by the Maryland House ultimately failed. Back to the Wapo.

In a polarized political climate, in which elections are routinely marked by litigation and allegations of incompetent administration or outright tampering, some worry that voting problems could cast a Florida-style shadow over this fall's midterm elections.

"We could see that control of Congress is going to be decided by races in recount situations that might not be determined for several weeks," said Paul S. DeGregorio, chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, although he added that he does not expect problems of this magnitude.

"It's hard to put a factor on how ill-prepared we are," said former Ohio governor Richard F. Celeste, a Democrat who recently co-chaired a study of new machines with Republican Richard L. Thornburgh, former governor of Pennsylvania, for the National Research Council. They advised local election officials to prepare backup plans for November.

"What we know is, these technologies require significant testing and debugging to make them work," added Celeste, now president of Colorado College. "Our concern -- particularly as we look to the November election, when there is a lot of pressure on -- is that election officials consider what kinds of fallbacks they can put in place."

It seems that this issue is suddenly, almost oddly, beginning to reach critical mass -- but the question remains, can the problems be corrected and/or alternatives put in place in time to ensure a fair and accurate election this November. And if not, and either the Republicans retain control of the House, or the Democrats take over either House of Congress - as they care currently projected to do - will anyone be able to trust the results? How can you have an effective Democracy if you can't trust the vote?

Answer: You Can't!

Vyan

Electronic Voting Demo on Fox News

Stop George from Dailykos, who posted the previous Princeton Video of a Diebold voting machine being hacked, has just posted another video of the very same Princeton people demonstrating how that very same machine can be fooled on Fox and Friends - and even they got it.

When you watch the video you will discover that, although not a lot of time is spent discussing this serious issue -- Professor Felten clearly shows the right-wingers that they have a lot to be concerned about. The bubble-head hosts even gasped and seemed to understand the seriousness of this demonstration.

And so, I think we have almost achieved a pivotal point in this whole saga of e-voting in America. RFK jr. et al's massive lawsuit against the e-voting companies (which they say will curl your toes) is expected to be front-page news within the next couple of weeks. And now, this issue is starting to gain wide political exposure on such programs as Lou Dobbs and Fox News. Yes, friends -- I have a feeling this story is going to go critical mass.

Watch and share, even with all your wingnut friends.

Vyan

The Video that Shook Democracy

From the Democratic Underground Front Page.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this chilling video is worth million. This week, some professors at Princeton University released a study that everyone should be talking about. As part of the study, there is a short video where they demonstrate how easy it is to alter election results in an undetectable way.

We encourage everyone to take 9 minutes to watch this video, and then share it with everyone you know. Show it to your local election officials, particularly if you use touchscreen voting machines. Just sharing this video is a powerful way to raise awareness. Help spread the word!



Video: http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/video...

We are also asking everyone to contact CNN's Lou Dobbs, the only mainstream journalist who has been discussing the electronic voting machines, and ask him to show this video on his 6pm news broadcast. You can contact Lou Dobbs here.
There's lots more happening, including some big lawsuits which could throw a monkey wrench into the entire electronic voting machine industry. Stay tuned, we'll be in touch. Don't forget to check our website for updated info.

Best Regards,
the Election Justice Center
on the Solar Bus.

Vyan